Vulture Whale’s EP Bambooyou Reviewed by Elizabeth Murphy

One can easily be distracted, or turned off by some of the least important things when listening to an album for the first time. For instance, with me, the beats are usually the first thing that grabs my attention. Then, all the other dimensions of the album fall into place around the fact that it sounds good. Bambooyou, the new EP from Vulture Whale took some getting used to, only because it wasn’t a “love at first hear” kind of thing. But after multiple plays, and picking up on some of the other attributes of the album, it unfolded and revealed itself to be better than how I initially felt upon first hearing it.

The first song, “Greatest Night,” is probably the best song on the entire EP, because it delivers when producing good music. It starts off with the vibrating strings from a guitar, followed by Wes McDonald, the band’s lead singer, singing in a British accent. And although noticeable inauthentic, the imitating helps to bring fourth a different sounding song from what you’ll normally hear in today’s music on the radio. The lyrics on the song, as well as on all the other songs, is a classic example of Vulture Whale’s sense of humor and ability to get that across in their music.

“Greatest Night,” talks about meeting a woman for the first time and falling in love with her. That moment (like often repeated in the song) becomes, “The greatest night of [his] whole mother fucking life.” Later in the song, it is revealed that he becomes too wrapped up in her beauty to realize that she is taking advantage of him. He continues, “Well, let me see, she went on and just stripped me for parts. At least she let me keep my guitar.”

The words to this song will keep you laughing at the lyrics because of the scenario you can picture in your head while your listening it. This obviously isn’t your typical love song, because it pokes fun of what is supposed to be a serious situation by downplaying it. It also isn’t slow and drawn out like most of the love songs you’d hear. Instead, it’s a straightforward, yet playful and perky song.
The track that follows, “Let Get On With It, Then” and the EP’s fourth song, “I Love You,” are more slow sounding tunes. These tracks also have a bit of a dreamy feel to them, because of the way McDonald’s lazy tongue seems to just sashay through each word like a beautiful woman gliding through a park on a summers day. The track, “I Love You,” has lyrics such as, “Baby, I love you. You know that I love you. I hope that that sounds great,” that gives another example of how modest the words are, and how lovely they are because of it.
Vulture Whale’s EP Bambooyou is a laid back kind of album that is very much invested in the lyrics and a certain kind of uniqueness that is hard to come across.